21 March 2019 in Writing
After enduring the humid chamber of clasped teenage hands, We vowed, as adults, intimate anonymity. The only sweet saliva we would know was our own. The perfection of our matrimony mimicked the crown moulding. A necessary unnecessary that sought to define us as separate.
20 March 2019 in Writing
In the reflection of his mirrored sunglasses she could see the ironed smoothness of her hair— a gleaming halo of gold—as the late afternoon sun crowned her: Queen. From the café table on the sidewalk, they could patrol the borders, of the countries of murmured conversations inside the restaurant of the brilliant green lick of the median dividing the street of the as-yet-to-conquer City tucked in a thin envelope of fog, beyond. She raised a glass of pink champagne to her lips, smiling as the dishes and cutlery in the kitchen fell forward in audible supplication. He lowered his head to the clay dish of olives on the table, counting the slick orbs as if they were coins and parsing
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7 March 2019 in Writing
She was born the runt of the litter and so thought herself a dog, much to the chagrin of her wolf mother. She thought, also, that love was better than snow, better than long treks through the woods, better than scavenging for dinner. And so she set off alone, hunting it. Love, love, love. Each lover was a new collar, some comfortable, some too tight at first, some easy to slip out of if necessary. But she rarely slipped away, even in the early days when she could smell that it’d never work out. She was too proud. She’d found it: Love, love, love. From the collar, the leash extended. At first, she enjoyed showing off all the tricks: Heel,
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1 March 2019 in Writing
The man upstairs is a fox. The day I moved in, he stood at the corner of the parking lot, his dark eyes following boxes in and following empty-handed delivery men out. He stood there too long, and I thought maybe he’d lost his car, though there are fewer than twenty spots in the lot. I’d just finished counting–boxes, parking spots–when he stepped forward, extended his hand, folded at the waist, “Hello. I live upstairs.” His shirts are always tucked in. His hair is always neatly combed. As he walks, his eyes dart left and right, scanning the territory. He is a fox, I tell the tiny jade bear totem on the bookshelf. “What do you think of that?” The
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28 February 2019 in Writing
K died the summer before sixth grade. She’d been walking on the side of the road when a car clipped her. Months later, during the short dark days of basketball season, a grown-up would remark, “Pedestrians are supposed to walk opposite the direction of traffic. That way, you see ’em coming.” At the funeral, some of them were already reckoning with this, as if it were a true or false question: You are flirting with death if you choose to walk on the right hand side of the road. True or false. A driver is absolved of wrong-doing if all they can see is the back of your giggling shoulder. True or false. In these summers before they could drive,
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23 February 2019 in Music, Writing
People ask when my next concert will be. “I’d love to hear you play.” Or, “I just love the piano.” Always said, it seems, with eyes rolling heavenward or a clasp of hand to the heart. These prostrations unnerve me. I bear up. “I’m hibernating,” I say. “No performances on the horizon.” I hear that hibernating bears emerge bony and skeletal from their dens. Weak and emaciated. I observe my fingers, which now sometimes have problems opening jars. I wriggle them and wonder how long they would last across the tundra. In my hibernation, I listen to music, sometimes, like last night, discovering a pianist from Iceland, Vikingur Olafsson, who recorded Philip Glass in 2017, and then J.S. Bach less
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